00:06 John Daub: So, hello again. I'm still in Ouchijuku. This is a samurai town where they used to stay about 150 years ago. All these buildings were where hotels are in. Some of them were farmhouses. They turned into samurai inns. And there's a place that's very special. That's called Misawaya Soba. And it's been open for over 200 years. And that's that building right here. Pretty cool, huh?

00:44 John Daub: So this soba shop has some pretty interesting soba. Gak, who's from Fukushima City—this is the town, Ouchijuku. If you want to see more, I did a street food episode on this about five minutes ago. But Gak, who's from Fukushima City, is here and he's going to be eating this soba with me. We've already ordered it. This restaurant's pretty cool. You can see in here, in the summer when it's warmer, you can eat inside here. See, there's a table right off of the street here. That's pretty cool. So let's go inside.

01:50 John Daub: Oh, that's the soba. Is that a big piece of ebi? Shrimp in it? Okay, no, it's negi (Japanese leek). This is negi. Like a green onion. It's like a kind of an onion taste, but stronger in a way. I hear fish down here. This is the irori (sunken hearth fireplace) in the center of the house. That's also some more iwana (river fish).

02:45 John Daub: I'm here to eat soba. See the ceiling? It's all wood. This house used to be a farmer's house, I heard. And when he wasn't farming, it turned into an inn, so the samurai would come and spend the night here. And when they spend the night, of course, they eat. And one of the things that they were served in this particular place was soba. Oh, and Gak has already... Oh, no, it's okay. I'm coming. There's already soba on the table. Is that it?

03:30 Gak: What is this? This is mizu soba (water soba). So it's got water in it.

03:45 John Daub: Why is there such a big piece of negi?

03:52 Gak: It's the scent of chopsticks.

03:54 John Daub: What? This is crazy. You can eat the spoon. So in samurai times, did they eat like this?

04:15 Gak: With a big piece of negi? Samurai don't eat like this.

04:22 John Daub: Yeah, I don't think so. And you have sake. Wow. Sobadare (soba dipping sauce). This is the sauce for the soba. That's the soba water. Daikon-jiru (daikon soup). Oh no no! That's from daikon, the Japanese radish. Interesting. I've never had it like this before. It can be complicated. I've never had this type of soba before. This is a rare soba. You dip it in this. Wow. So it's like slurp it like ramen. But isn't it hot?

05:16 Gak: It's cold.

05:18 John Daub: Oh, it's cold. Wow. Put some sobadare in there, some sauce. Oh gosh, that looks so good. Don't forget that one.

05:42 Gak: It's good, right?

05:44 John Daub: It looks so good. Yeah, so what I have here is, this one is called—I have the menu right here. Takato soba. So that's Takato soba. That's what it looks like in the picture. And the real thing looks pretty good too. So Takato soba is hot. It's got bonito fish, which is katsuobushi on top. This is the soba and it looks like the sauce is different. But I don't know how to eat this. Is this sauce? Ah, soba-yu (soba cooking water). This is, you have daikon-yu. Daikon. That's daikon water. It looks kind of the same. This one is from the leftover water from the soba boiled and you can reuse this for soup. That's pretty interesting. So, what should I do? I don't know how to eat this.

06:42 Gak: You have to scoop the soba with the green onion and eat it.

06:47 John Daub: Okay. Basically I have to eat this with the green onion. All right. Well, we can do this here. Let's see. I never had, I've never eaten this kind of soba before. It's a little bit hard to eat.

07:09 Gak: Yeah, but I love negi.

07:10 John Daub: I really do. I love negi. All right. This is, okay. Just do it. It's not easy. It's soba. The samurai did not eat like this. I bet the samurai had to eat like this. They'd take out the sword and go to the owner and go, I'm not—and just probably slash the thing. This big piece of negi sticking out of the bowl of soba is pretty cool. It has a lot of impact on it.

08:09 John Daub: What is this? Daikon? I don't know but it's purple. Let's try it. Mmm, crunchy. Daikon maybe. But it's pickled so it's got some vinegar to it but not overpowering, slightly sweet. It's a little sweet. What about this? This is potato. Samurai potatoes maybe. Mmm, this is my first time trying this. I've never tasted a potato like this before. It's a little sweet. Did you put something on it? This isn't your ordinary potato. No, there's something in it. It's a little bit sweeter and has a softer... Oh, check it out. Wow.

09:43 Gak: Please enjoy your soba.

09:46 John Daub: What's this? What is this?

09:58 Gak: Korai ninjin (medicinal carrot). Ninjin is carrot.

10:19 John Daub: I know what tempura is. Come on, tempura, we all know what tempura is. This looks like tempura. This is carrot tempura? Wow. We had just tempura before. This is a super tempura day. It's all kind of the same, huh? This is just right out of the fryer. Oh, it looks so good. It smells amazing. A little bit of salt on there. This is carrot? Ninjin. But it's not orange. Kusuri no ninjin (medicinal carrot). So it's a special ninjin with kusuri (medicine). Oh okay, this makes you really... Wow. It's like white. Can you see that in there? Carrots are usually orange. This one is white. Very interesting. It's white. Try it. Please try to eat one. It's bitter. You can see inside. This is really unique. That's a carrot. Why is it white? It's not called ninjin but it's not a carrot. So it has the name of a carrot. A carrot sometimes isn't a carrot apparently in Japan. But one thing is for sure, it's pretty good. I think if you batter and deep fry anything it just gets better. Although I do like the taste of the natural carrots. So that was interesting. I'm still kind of digging this one here.

12:50 Gak: You really do.

12:51 John Daub: By dig I mean it too. You have to dig in to get the soba. I've never eaten like this. This is weird. Oh man. It doesn't stick. There's no way to eat it. You can't eat it like normal. You have to really work it, you know? Great taste. I don't look pretty doing it. It's like sticking your head in a dog bowl. It's so good.

13:39 John Daub: How much is this? Let's look at the menu. This is 1080 yen. That's the 8 for the kanji 8. 1 0 8 0. I guess the tax. There's 8% tax in Japan. So this one is about $10 or $9 with the conversion rate right now. And this is the mizu soba. And then this one was 1296 yen. Very cool. I like it that they write in the traditional way. And again the negi is for free maybe. Awesome. I do like this building a lot. So that's the soba. Oh my gosh my legs are killing me. It's hard for me to sit on the floor. I've been here for so many years. It's still hard to sit on the floor. But you can see this restaurant has a lot of history to it. And people come here to eat the lunch. Very cool. I put a link in the description so you can see where this place is. It's very very interesting.

15:01 John Daub: I like when you leave to go and pay. The lady is in a traditional spot too. Oh look they put the finished fish up here like a fishery. Fish and arrows. The lady sits down there so you have to bend down to pay. Yeah. You actually bend down to pay. And that's sort of weird. Usually you pay standing up. But in this case you have to get down. Yeah. It's a really traditional place. I just wanted to bring you in here and show you what it looks like. Oh there's my shoes. These are my new boots. They fell apart when I was hitchhiking.

15:57 John Daub: It's great to travel around outside the countryside. I think if you come to Japan you want to leave Tokyo. You want to come to these places like here Fukushima or gosh there's all these other places around Kanto or Tohoku. You get like an old town feeling to it. And that culture, that history and the culture fuse together like these buildings and wood. That smell of the fireplace that they don't have in Tokyo. Do you see that? That fire is not allowed in Tokyo like this open fire. I don't think so. But you get that smell, that feeling. And that you only get that when you're outside out of the city I think. You come to the mountain town like Fukushima's Ouchijuku. There's like hundreds of them but this one is kind of special.

16:55 John Daub: I'm going to go back and eat the soba. I just want to introduce you to it before we get really long into this. I'm going to be live streaming again probably tomorrow. I know it's getting late in the United States but I got one more before I leave Fukushima to go back to Tokyo. It's kind of fun. This trip is winding down. I've been in about a dozen different baths. I've stayed at about five different ryokans. And the video I'm putting together is a really great comparison of all the different ryokans. It's going to be kind of a fun guide and adventure for the main channel. But thanks for sharing the experience with me on the live streams. See you everybody. Good night, good day, good afternoon, good morning wherever you are in the world. It's warm, feels good.